


Can I Kiss You?

by mizdiz



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Porn With Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 08:36:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18312059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizdiz/pseuds/mizdiz
Summary: spoilers for 9x16"She slips off her gloves and her hands are bare. He knew they would be, but the sight still makes his heart skip a beat. Her ring was the only wall that has ever been between them. It was thin, and translucent, but as long as that small diamond adorned her left hand, it could never be breached."





	Can I Kiss You?

It's been an age since Daryl's had a house.

Or, well, has he ever had a house? 

Surely the shack he grew up in doesn't count, and everything after that he's rebelled against, as though putting himself between walls was the same as bars, even with the doors unlocked. But this is his house. This is their house. Hell, this might even be a home.

He watches Carol unwrap herself from her many layers, her clothes wet with melted snow, her cheeks rosy red from the bite of the chill. She pulls off her hat and her hair falls down all the way to her mid-back. How many inches of safety is the length of her hair by now? And will she keep it? He figures time will tell if she's still the type of woman who grows her hair out.

She slips off her gloves and her hands are bare. He knew they would be, but the sight still makes his heart skip a beat. Her ring was the only wall that has ever been between them. It was thin, and translucent, but as long as that small diamond adorned her left hand, it could never be breached.

It's gone now, though, and she's made a choice. Her words have been ringing in her ears since the steps at the sanctuary.

“What do you want me to do?” he'd asked her, expecting to be cast away, not because she didn't want him, but because she did.

“I want you to go to Alexandria,” she'd said. “And I want you to take me with you.”

They've both been running for so long that the tread of their boots has long since rubbed away, but now they've finally chosen to be static, and after so many years of missing each other by inches, they've come to a stop in the same spot.

And her hands are bare, her cheeks rosy red, and her eyes are the same blue they've always been, and god he's been telling himself for years upon years to not think she's pretty, but how can he do that now? He can't, not while she's stood before him like a piece of precious artwork, looking at him so sweetly with that smile she reserves for him and him alone.

He wants to ask, “Can I kiss you?”

It's unfathomable, honestly, to think that she might say yes to a question like that. How many nights has he closed his eyes and thought only of what she would feel like pressed up against him? But those had been flights of fancy, and this is real life, and Lydia is in the next room over probably awash with the same walls vs. bars feeling Daryl knows all too well, and he can't ask something like that, not now. Maybe not ever, but he can hope. 

For once he's allowed to hope.

*

They have rooms across the hall from one another. He spends a good half hour laying on his back, chewing on a cuticle, listening to her rustle around. They don't sleep, the two of them, even before the apocalypse. One eye open, an ear listening—they've always felt like they've got targets on their backs and it's hard to sleep like that.

He doesn't move until he hears her tears start, and, almost as if he was expecting it, that's when he rolls himself off his mattress and pads over in his wool socks, through his door, across the two steps of hallway, to hers.

There's no point in knocking since he's going inside whether she tells him yes or no, so he just opens it slowly to give her time to react. 

She lifts her head at him, wiping her eyes, the moon casting a light over her from the window. He's hit with a memory that slices him when it arrives. He remembers her curled up on the bed in the RV, back when she thought she was the prey and not a predator. He can hear the sound of a beer bottle clunking down on a shelf, and him waxing poetic about myths and hopes that ultimately were crushed about as flat as a piece of paper.

He doesn't come bearing any symbols to help her mourn tonight. All he has is himself, and she'll have to make due. 

She doesn't offer up an invitation, nor does he ask for one, but he gets into her bed anyway, and she scoots over to accommodate him without a moment's hesitation. He wraps himself around her from behind and pulls her tight to his chest. 

He wants to ask, “Can I kiss you?” 

But there's too much pain in the room for that. She'd say yes, but only because she's hurting, and that would hurt him, and neither of them need anymore wounds. Instead, he lets her weep silently in his arms. They stay cocooned together on top of the sheets.

By the time day breaks, they haven't slept a wink.

*

She's laughing at him, and even though he's the butt of the joke, he can't be mad because her laugh is like honeycomb or sugar or anything sweet—he’s never been great at metaphors, but he knows he loves the sound. 

She says, “You're such a new dad, except your baby is a teenager.”

“Ain't her dad,” he mumbles, but they both know that's not exactly true.

He's managed to piss his not-quite-daughter off by getting snippy at her for wandering out of the house at night, making him panic when he couldn't find her. 

“She seriously told you to stop hovering?” Carol says, still laughing. “That's such a teenage girl thing to say. And who woulda thought Daryl Dixon would be a helicopter parent?”

“I was worried, that's all,” Daryl says, embarrassed, because he knows it's stupid. Lydia is old enough to take walks at night if she wants to. She doesn't sleep, either. After all, doesn't she have the same perpetual target on her back as him and Carol? 

“It's part of parenthood,” Carol says. “The constant worry. But sometimes you have to keep it to yourself, and realize you can only protect them so much.”

She's smiling but she carries her loss with her always, like a dark cloud hovering just to the left of her at all times. He's grateful that she's a remarkable enough woman to see her reflection in Lydia the same way Daryl sees his, when it would be so easy for her to see nothing but a villain.

He wants to ask, “Can I kiss you?”

It's been literal years since he's been able to spend this much time with her, and he forgot that she's got a knack for reminding him that she's miraculous every day that he's with her.

Judith and RJ are playing soccer in the grass adjacent to them. Rosita is taking a stroll with Gabriel, her hand on her growing belly. The space is very open, so he leaves his mouth decidedly shut.

If he's to have her, he wants her to himself.

*

They've taken to sharing a bed. It happens naturally. Daryl doesn't always stay in it. Sometimes she doesn't either. Maybe they've stopped running, but that doesn't mean they'll ever stop being restless.

But tonight they're both in the room, in the bed. Carol's pretending to read a book, which Daryl only knows because he's pretending to be asleep and hasn't heard her turn a page in ages. Eventually he shuffles around to lay on his side and face her. 

“What're you thinking about?” he asks her. She eyes him thoughtfully. She dog tags the corner of her page and sits the book on the bedside table.

“Touch me,” she says then. Daryl stares at her, not sure he heard her right. Instead of repeating herself she draws her lips into a thin line and shrugs, as if to say, “Well, get on with it.”

When Daryl still doesn't move she huffs a fond sigh and begins undoing the buttons on the oversized shirt she wears to bed. He watches her get down to the very last button before he finally pushes himself up and looks at her properly.

She has scars on her torso, and a few large freckles dotting her skin. She doesn't wear a bra at nighttime. He looks to her for permission one more time, and when she gives a nod of the head he runs his hands from her waist, over her breasts, to her shoulders where he pushes her shirt down and starts nipping at the dip in her collarbone. 

She makes a noise low in her throat and tilts her head to give him more access. He sucks on the skin of her neck, and then rakes his teeth gently back down her body again. He shoves the blankets away into a big heap that dangles off the edge of the bed. 

She doesn't wear pants to bed either, her shirt being long enough to cover her up, but now she's unbuttoned and exposed and Daryl easily hooks his fingers around the band of her panties and slides them down her long legs and off her feet.

To even the playing field he quickly takes off his own shirt and shoves his boxers down and kicks them onto the floor—he knows if the roles were reversed he wouldn't want to be the only one on display, so he lets them both be naked as the day they were born, say for Carol's shirt that's still barely hanging on, pooled around her elbows, but he can't be bothered with that right now.

Instead, he nudges her knee and her legs fall open for him. He meets her eye and she's maybe a little nervous, but he wouldn't go as far as to call it apprehension. They couldn't have done this back when they were on the road, when they were still more wound than scar. The years have taught them how to navigate their trauma, and while it's still with them, it's not them.

He gives her a reassuring squeeze on the leg and presses his lips to her lower belly. He goes down then and all but buries himself in her. He flattens his tongue and licks her from her core to her clit in long, languid strokes that make her hand find his hair and tangle her fingers in it.

He doesn't have a set rhythm down yet; he's just entertaining himself for now. He fucks her with his tongue, as deep as he can go, reveling in the taste of her, in the smell. 

He keeps fucking her with his mouth while he runs his thumb in a gentle circular motion around her clit. He finds his rhythm then, only coming up for air when he absolutely has to, and truth be told, if he were to die like this, well, there are worse ways to go.

“Daryl.” 

She says it like a warning; he hears it as a declaration. The leg he's still holding tenses, and against his mouth he can feel her muscles contracting over and over as she pulls his hair with one hand and covers her mouth with the other to muffle her sounds.

He doesn't stop until the very last twitch of her muscles. He moves away, his face drenched, the smell of her embedded in his facial hair. He uses his forearm to wipe some of it off, and he wonders how he gets a caveman-like reputation.

Before he gets a chance to ask where they go from here, Carol is already pushing him onto his back. He lets her maneuver him where she wants, and then sucks in a breath when she straddles him.

She takes hold of the backboard of the bed and lowers herself down. It takes a moment to get the angle right, but once it does he slides right in, and jesus it's been a long time. Pre-apocalypse. It feels like such a lifetime ago he may as well be a virgin, but who's counting or caring right now when a beautiful woman he loves more than anything is riding him like it'll save the world.

He holds her by the hips, his fingers digging into her pelvic bone. Like trying to find the right note to come in on, he figures out how to thrust up when she thrusts down so they're fucking each other.

If he could he'd do this forever, reveling in not just the feel of her around him, but in the closeness and the security and the affection. It's up to his body, though, not his brain, and when he says her name he says it both as a warning and a declaration.

She doesn't let up, riding him all the way through his wave the same way he did hers. He trembles beneath her, breathing hard, staring at her like she's the answer to everything that's ever been asked. She lets him catch his breath before carefully pulling herself off of him.

“I'm going to go clean myself up,” she tells him, making to leave, making to go wash this whole thing between them—whatever it is—off of her, but he grabs her by the wrist.

“Wait,” he says. She does and looks at him expectantly. He swallows hard. “Can I kiss you?”

She regards him for a long moment, or rather, they regard each other. Her hair's a mess, and somewhere along the way she finally lost her shirt. She wets her bottom lip with her tongue. After an eternity, she nods.

He pushes himself up immediately, not taking the chance of her changing her mind. He cups her cheek and kisses her, close-mouthed and hard. 

She's the one who parts her lips, and he eagerly follows suit, letting her run her tongue over his. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and deepens the kiss until the wall her ring built between them finally crumbles into dust once and for all.

That night they don't sleep, not that they ever do, but it's not the targets on their backs keeping them awake. In the moonlight, all the way until the sunlight, they kiss like teenagers under the bleachers.

All those years he spent likening walls to bars seem silly, now that he's got her and he feels freer than he ever felt in any forest.

He's glad to stop running.

He's happy he's standing still.

**Author's Note:**

> i did not intend for this to be porn, but i guess i've gone too long without daryl eating pussy that it just happened. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> anyway, i wrote this on my phone at 2am after spending all day working on check engine light, so don't take it too seriously. dat finale tho?? caryl is in the air, bros.
> 
> love you all,
> 
> -diz


End file.
